everywhere, using the dark arts of gramarye or just the ears they were born with. Toby tried to make things as hard for them as he could, although he also assumed that anything he said or did would be promptly reported to his enemies or allies or both. He held important meetings in the courtyard, which was enclosed by walls of ancient Roman brick and shadowed by cypresses, fruit trees, and grapevine trellises. It could be entered by a gate from the orchard or a door from the villa itself, but only the hearing of a cat could eavesdrop on what was said there. Even so early in the year, when the vines were bare and the almond blossom had not yet exploded into spring glory, the air was often warm enough to do business out-of-doors. There he passed the day, struggling to recruit an army without actually spending money he did not yet possess.
Seven men defined the Don Ramon Company. The don had ridden off to do verbal battle with Benozzo and the rest of the
'Twenty thousand men,' he said. 'At the moment we have…?'
'Three thousand and thirty-three,' Arnaud growled. He was the one the other three thousand and thirty-two were threatening to hang if they were not paid soon.
Toby looked inquiringly to the marshal.
'Another four squadrons, no more,' Diaz said — roughly six hundred men or about a hundred helmets. More men made the Company more difficult to manage efficiently, which was why Arnaud was nodding agreement, although he and Diaz rarely agreed on anything. To fulfill his
'Who else is good?' Toby asked, although he had a clear list in his head already, plus extensive notes Hamish had left him. Arnaud answered first.
'The Mad Dogs.'
'Brucioli's too fond of marching.' Diaz's face never showed his feelings. 'They fight well if they get the chance, though.'
'We'll give them the chance,' Toby said. 'How about the Red Band?'
The day flew by in argument and discussion, the men by turns sitting on the wooden stools or pacing around. Who was good, who unreliable? Who clashed with whom? Why hadn't so-and-so's band been signed up already?
Time and again Toby's mind slid back to the problem of the missing gold. It made no sense. Whoever the mysterious shadow was, why make an impossible mystery out of the crime? Why take one small bag and ignore all the rest? Why take any? Perhaps the unknown spy's purpose was merely to sow distrust. Now no one could feel completely safe or rely on anyone else.
'Fifteen lire a man won't buy many,' Diaz was saying. 'They all know there'll be no looting, and the cost of everything is going up like a bombard shot. Rosselli is asking a twenty-thousand-ducat signing bonus.'
'Can't afford it. He's good but not that good.'
How much silver for a man's life? How much gold for his honor? Ignoring gramarye, who might sell out for simple avarice? Any of these three?
Brother Bartolo? The friar was a wine tub of a man, rubicund face perpetually beaming, with only a faint fringe of silver around his tonsure, an Italian edition of Friar Tuck. During a memorable celebration after the Battle of Padua some very drunk young squires had found a steelyard and started laying bets on who weighed more, Longdirk in his battle gear or Bartolo in his gray Franciscan robe. Because those striplings had acquitted themselves like veterans that day, Toby had submitted to the indignity of being weighed. He had lost handily. Enormous Bartolo ran the secretariat with good humor and unfailing efficiency. Even now, as each decision was reached, he would poke two fingers in his mouth and emit a whistle louder than a bugle call. A clerk would come running out to hear the details and then run indoors to write the letter. Soon corrected drafts and fair copies were piling up, ready to be signed and sealed. Toby could not imagine life without the fat man to handle his endless correspondence.
Yet he knew almost nothing of the friar's past. Don Ramon had hired him to write some letters the day after reaching Italy, and that timing made it very hard to see Bartolo as a spy planted on the Company, because the Company had not even existed. He evaded his oaths of poverty and chastity by insisting that his wages be paid to his mistress and their rapidly increasing family, and a man who could bend his sworn word like that was not perfectly honest.
Who was? Certainly not Arnaud Villars, with his enormous black beard, his ferocious dark scowl, his well- checkered past. The first time Toby had met him, he had been running a profitable smuggling operation between Aquitaine and Navarre. After war had ruined business, they had run into each other in Barcelona — apparently by chance — and Toby had hired him on the spot. Without doubt Arnaud skimmed something off the payroll, so he had no reason to steal openly. Furthermore, it had been he who reported the loss. As quartermaster, he was astute enough to stay level with the Florentine suppliers, as paymaster he ran a personal army of clerks to keep track of what every man was owed in wages or what he still had to repay on his equipment if the Company had provided it, to assign fodder for his horse and record whose horse it was — and on and on. Toby got headaches even thinking about it. He had known Arnaud longer than anyone in the Company except Hamish. They had fought shoulder to shoulder in Navarre.
But? But why was the leopard curled up on the hearth-rug? Men of action rarely transformed themselves so willingly into quill-pushers. Maybe the old scoundrel was just starting to feel his age.
Diaz? The captain was a true professional, a soft-spoken imperturbable Catalan with a face carved from well-seasoned oak. It was he who had turned the Company into a fighting machine as fine as any in Italy. He recruited, outfitted, drilled, disciplined, and never complained or argued or displayed any facial expression whatsoever. He was a devout man, deeply troubled by the spiritual dangers of his chosen career. The Don Ramon Company would collapse without him. As far as trust went, he ranked right after Hamish Campbell.
Men were never simple. The don, who would die rather than blemish his precious honor, would lie like a horse trader to seduce a pretty girl, promising anything. Maestro Fischart's hatred for the Fiend knew no bounds whatsoever, but he spent his days and nights in the company of demons; he had been enthralled once and might be trapped again. Even Hamish, honest as the hills, was usually either aching from a broken heart or so starry-eyed in love that he blundered into doorposts.
Toby was shocked to realize that the shadows were growing longer already. An arrow took only seconds to flash across a field and end a man's life, but if you counted the year or longer needed to make the bow and the many years required to train the archer, then an arrow was a slow death. Similarly, a war might be settled in a single hard battle. It was preparing for war that took the time.
The don's appointment had become known in the city, and volunteers were reported at the gates. Diaz sent word that they should wait, even knowing that most would turn out to be runaway apprentices lacking even a horse.
They had run out of names at last. Toby arranged the letters in heaps — the good, the bad, the possible, the last resorts. He pulled out four. 'Desjardins, if he is still available.' According to yesterday's rumors, he had signed on with Naples. 'Simonetta, D'Amboise, and della Sizeranne. We need those four.'
Three heads nodded.
All four condottieri had wintered near Naples. The fastest mail was the service run by the Marradi Bank, which was efficient — so efficient that a copy of any letter he sent would undoubtedly arrive on the Magnificent's desk before the original left Florence — but message and response would still require at least ten days. If the offers were refused, that meant ten more days lost. A demon ride would be faster, but that option was not available to Toby himself, and he would not call for volunteers. What sort of man would risk his soul for a handful of gold? What sort of man would ask him? The Marradi mail it would have to be.
He threw the letters on the table and sat down to reach for the quill standing in its silver inkwell. 'Let's send these ones on their way as soon as possible. Who's next?' Biting his tongue, he began penning his signature…
'There is one position you have not mentioned,' Diaz said.
Toby looked up sharply, but the marshal's face was as scrutable as mud.
